Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods. — Christopher Hitchens
My friend Kabsat Kandu is not impressed with Hitchens’ insight. He cites a pithier one by Winston Churchill: “Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
“That’s why,” Kandu says, “I’d rather take care of my pigs, which bring me extra income, rather than cats, which steal food from my kitchen.”
A feral cat roaming the slopes below a Baguio ridge. I tried to tame it with food bait for several months, without success. But that's ok. Cats have the right to self-determination too.
Our neighborhood at the very fringe of Baguio is particularly lucky for being situated a stone’s throw away, quite in a literal sense, from a small pine grove. This grove, in turn, was originally an extension of a much bigger privately owned forest, but now separated from it by a couple of concrete alleys, a growing cluster of houses, and eroded slopes of coarse runo grass.
Shouldn’t it be obvious enough, like it’s staring you in the face?
The news today is that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority has collected stupendous amounts of garbage that accumulated over the November 1-2 weekend in the various cemeteries of the metropolis. Well, you buy flowers and candles, you bring them to the cemeteries, and you leave them there. What do you think will happen? That the dead will later rise and clean up after you?
IRAIA thoughts
I’m thankful we made the decision not to bring flowers and candles to the cemetery, but just ourselves, with our mindful presence, deep thoughts and memories.
If we had to offer flowers and candles, I’d rather that we offer them at home, or wherever we are staying, so that the flowers and candles are kept fresh as long as possible, and don’t go to waste in one universal implosion on the night of November 2.
And of course, if I had given more attention to it, like in past All Saints-All Souls days, I would have made an additional offering of wine, in copitas for easy gulps, so that my dead ancestors and and I could sit down once more for an evening of relaxed reminiscing. Other gentle souls in the vicinity would have been welcome, and in the morning, we would have emptied a bottle or two.
We would have cleaned up afterwards, and not rely on MMDA to pick up our self-inflicted trash. Leaving cemeteries as clean as we found it — I’d have thought our ancestors taught us how it’s properly done, all these years. # Follow @junverzola
